


abandoned heaven, abandoned earth

by serafinawitchwoman



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Mention of guns, blood tw, injury tw, just general misery as is the de Rolo lot in life, suicide TW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 15:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11383521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serafinawitchwoman/pseuds/serafinawitchwoman
Summary: The other mother pushed down on the door handle and pulled open the door, revealing a corridor behind it, dark and empty. “There,” she said, waving her hands at the corridor. The expression of delight on her face was a very bad thing to see. “You’re wrong! You don’t know where your parents are, do you? They aren’t there.” She turned and looked at Coraline. “Now,” she said, “you’re going to stay here for ever and always.”“No,” said Coraline. “I’m not.”—Neil Gaiman,CoralineOr: In which Delilah's name rises to the top of the list.





	abandoned heaven, abandoned earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captaintiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaintiny/gifts).



> Title from "Inanna's Descent into the Underworld". Crafted with all my love for my dearest Percy, @captaintiny. Enjoy and weep with me, my friends.

So this is where it ends—where it has to end.  
She will make an end.  
She—the universe, the gods, all nine hells—can't stand this any more.

Her brother, beside her, is white and bloodless in the face, hands shaking, sweat on his palms, she can practically smell it. Her heart is roaring like a sunrise in her ears, drowning her out, the whole of her subsumed. It hadn't beaten for five years, now it's trying to do its solemn duty by her and keep her alive, force her to _run, Cassie, run, you have to run, you have to go, she's coming!_  
_What use is it?_ she demands of her heart. _What use are you? She's here._

One shaking leg, one temple step. Cold stone, cold through her boots. Blood trickling down the back of her neck, down her temples, her shoulders, between her breasts. Washing her clean.

She would have bowed her neck, like a lamb. She had nothing to survive for, not like the others, who kicked and screamed and cursed and flung spells at that beautiful sharp dead smiling face.  
The only face that ever smiled at her any more. The only hand that did not wrest her blood from her body when it touched her.  
(Most of the time.)  
So she would go quiet, and go into hell alone. Her family wouldn't need her—who did?  
_Yes, mother.  
I'm sorry, brother._

(She'd counted on him to survive. She'd counted on herself to die, and leave him in peace.  
She'd been counting on him to kill her, and when he didn't shoot her point blank between the eyes like she'd seen Ripley do to the people she was too tired to hurt, she got angry at him.  
At least Delilah would allow her to die, properly, kill the body this time instead of the soul.  
She'd counted on him not to leave. She didn't want to blame him. She knew how dead she looked, there in the snow, she was and is more familiar with death than with her own heart—but she'd still counted on him not to leave.)

Her brother takes her arm, pale and trembling and steadfast as the boughs of the Sun Tree in that winter. He's looking down at her, pellucid burning wild biting eyes, set jaw of ice, flush of blood staining his cheeks like twin sunrises. He is so beautiful. He looks just like Father.  
"Cassie, _no_ ," he breathes, and he hasn't called her that since—

  
She almost stays.

  
She swats him away, easy as pushing aside a branch. She takes another step. Pulls out a dagger.  
Her brother killed his devils. Delilah is hers to kill.  
Delilah, who made her a killer.  
Dagger two.  
Delilah, who killed her, and left her for dead.  
Dagger three.

 _Yours was the face I saw when murder entered my heart_ , she whispers to herself. Her voice is so much smaller and weaker than her big brother's. _This is your doing._  
_This is your doing._  
_This is your doing._  
"Hello, Mummy," she calls up the steps of the ziggurat. "Whatever are you doing alive? I killed you. You're supposed to be dead, you naughty thing."  
She smiles.


End file.
